The Retail
You still have to sell them.
Most of what STRYKE does is buying, because that’s where the money gets decided. But the leads coming the other way have the same problem. Somebody has to pick it up, work out what the customer actually wants, match it to what’s sitting on your lot, and get them on the calendar.
Most stores start on the Acquisition side and turn this on later. It’s there when you want it.
The hours you can’t staff
A salesman on the floor every hour you’re closed.
This is not about answering faster. If you take leads seriously you already answer them, and you answer them quickly. Any vendor who opens by telling you otherwise has not been in a store.
It’s about the hours nobody is there. Nine forty on a Sunday, the middle of a Saturday rush when every desk is full, the week somebody quits. You can’t fix that with people. A body on nights and weekends costs more than the cars he’d sell, which is exactly why the shift stays uncovered.
The number
One more car a month covers it.
Take your average front and back on a used unit. Whatever that number is, it is bigger than what this costs. Everything past the first car is yours.
That is the entire economic argument and we would rather you do the arithmetic than sit through ours.
Your people
Your BDC manager doesn’t get replaced. He coaches it.
Tell it once how you want a customer handled and it holds, which is more than a new hire does. Your salespeople still close. What changes is that they walk in to a booked customer instead of a voicemail and a stack of leads nobody worked.
That matters more than it used to. NADA puts total dealership turnover at 46%, a record, with salespeople around 80%. Whatever you teach the floor this quarter, you get to teach a good part of it again next year. This is the one thing in the store that doesn’t leave.
The part you actually worry about
It tells people what it is.
Ask it whether it’s a bot and it says so, then keeps working. That is on purpose. California has a law about denying it inside a deal and we would rather your store was never anywhere near it.
The rest of what it will and won’t do to a customer is graded, not promised. Here is how that gets tested.
Access
Get in on the pilot.
Put your name down and we’ll call you when a pilot spot opens.
No drip campaign. One message when your spot opens.